Abstract:

The belief that entrepreneurship is the panacea for economic growth is fast spreading. More universities are offering entrepreneurship courses and programs either in response to the growing demand from the public or due to the pressure from government. Nonetheless, past research in entrepreneurship and small and medium entreprises have recorded mixed results in terms of the relationship between education and new venture creation. Earlier studies in entrepreneurship which tended to focus on the trait theory seem to imply that new venture creation is influenced by personality. Among the commonly cited personality traits of entrepreneurs are risk takers, internal locus of control, success driven and high tolerence for ambiguity. Hence education does not play any direct role in creating entrepreneurs as one either has the characteristics or one does not, depending on who one is. Researchers who belong to the behavioral school of thought on the other hand, believe that becoming an entrepreneur is a planned action that is influenced by both internal factors (perceived behavioral control and attitude towards action) as well as an external factor (subjective norm).

This study seeks to uncover the relationship between perception towards entrepreneurship education to students' intention to become entrepreneurs. Based on the review of extensive literature, we postulate that intention to become an entrepreneur is a function of both personality and reasoned action. We try to combine the trait theory and Ajzen's (1991) theory of planned behavior in a structural equation model. The model's goodness of fit and relationship measurements are tested based on a sample of 257 undergraduate students of Tun Abdul Razak University. The university is Malaysia's first private university and it has declared entrepreneurship to be its niche area. Although the study is done as a case study of one university, we believe that the findings can be beneficial for other universities which are considering to offer entrepreneurship programs.

The tentative results show that the hypothesized model is slightly below the cut-off point for a fit model. Personality is found to influence students' career intention through attitude towards behavior rather than directly. We also found a significant relationship between subjective norm, attitude towards behavior and perceived behavioral control which is consistent with the theory of planned behavior. Insufficient evidence however, is found to to support the relationship between perception on entrepreneurship education and career intention. This may signal to the university that the strategy it is using is not effective enough. Recommendations are drawn based on the findings.

Keywords:

Career intention, entrepreneurship.